A spirited response enjoining MORE pessimism to Fred Hyatt’s Washington Post editorial on technology and democracy
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Coming to Booker T. Washington’s Up From Slavery
The circumstances of my purchase and knowledge of Up From Slavery, Booker T. Washington’s most famous autobiography
Continue reading...Read, Viewed: January 2021
January 2021 inaugurated both a new year and (Gott sei Dank!!!) a new president, during which I read and watched Vertigo, Stanley Cavell, Signs, Inside Llewyn Davis, and others.
Continue reading...Bad Poetry Morning
Repeatedly not finishing a sentence. Either subject or predicate but not both. Becomes some poetry itself.
Continue reading...Read Viewed Consumed 2020-12
Perhaps I began the month of December inauspiciously, insofar as I read/viewed/consumed nothing on the first day of the month (see below). In fact, I did read two different Harry...
Continue reading...Anna Seghers’ Transit: Profound Unknowing
In Anna Seghers’ novel Transit, no one really knows who the other is. The reader is never certain of who the narrator really is.
Continue reading...Read Viewed Consumed 2020-11
During the month of November what I read and viewed—what I consumed—was less varied and somewhat sparse. In fact, lost some weight.
Continue reading...Sexy Idea #2: Presentism—The Most Dangerous Prejudice
Calling presentism a prejudice is a little like calling 45 a bad president: It’s not strong enough.
Continue reading...Julio Cortázar’s “Bestiary”: Man-eating animals
The “Bestiary” narrates pre-adolescent Isabel’s summer vacation with her cousin Nino and … a tiger.
Continue reading...“Blind Geronimo and His Brother”: Mistrust Finds its End
Brothers Geronimo and Carlo travel the roads of 19th century Italy, entertaining passers-by with song, but one plants a seed of mistrust exposing years of alienation.
Continue reading...“Anxiety … Dizziness … Freedom”: Paraself Virtue
Ted Chiang’s “Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom” considers the ethical effects of the consulation with a paraself, a self known through quantum computing.
Continue reading...Gottfried Keller’s “The Little Dance Legend”: Pagans Mix Poorly
G. Keller’s “The Little Dance Legend” is a quizzical story about Musa, a dancer among the saints whose dance and pagan art led to expulsion from the heavenly host.
Continue reading...“Beyond the Pale”: The Repressed Returns
William Trevor’s “Beyond the Pale” tells of four friends visiting an idyllic Irish island, on the occasion of the return of the idyll’s history, dramatically so.
Continue reading...Ginzburg’s “The Mother”: Recollections Partial and Fleeting
Natalia Ginzburg’s “The Mother” is a story about a “mother” from the perspective of her two boys who receive from her little in the way of mothering.
Continue reading...Hoffman’s “Don Juan”: The Mysterious Visitation
Hoffmann’s “Don Juan” is a theatre review written as a short story, bound to enlighten lovers of Don Giovanni and mystify everyone else.
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